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Address 


OF 


HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW, 

at  the  laying  of 
the  corner-stone  of  the  college  building 

Given  by  William  H.  Vanderbilt 
to  the  college  of  physicians  and  surgeons, 

APRIL   24TH,    1886. 


Address 


OF 


HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW, 

at  the  laying  of 
the  corner-stone  of  the  college  building 

Given  by  William  H.  Vanderbilt 
to  the  college  of  physicians  and  surgeons, 

APRIL   24TH,    1886. 


^^^-^^-^/^ 


/m 


ADDRESS. 


ADiES  AND  Gentlemen  :  The  most 
instructive  and  pleasurable 
of  our  public  assemblies  are 
those  which  commemorate  the  better 
elements  of  our  common  humanity. 
The  fierce  competitions  of  our  in- 
dustrial conditions  present  the  possi- 
bilities for  unequal  success  and 
provoke  the  antagonisms  which 
threaten    social    order  and    security. 


As  the  less  fortunate  drift  into 
hostility  to  their  more  successful 
brethren,  and  those  who  by  their 
own  ability  or  by  inheritance  have 
been  lifted  above  the  struggles  of 
life  lose  sight  of  and  sympathy  with 
the  workers,  the  internal  relations 
of  crowded  communities  become 
dangerous  and  intolerable.  At  this 
point  the  man  of  wealth  who  founds 
or  endows  an  institution  which  shall 
contribute  in  a  large  and  permanent 
way  to  the  welfare  of  the  people 
becomes  a  statesman  as  well  as  a 
philanthropist.  He  brings  us  back 
to  first  principles  in  this  recognition 
of  our  common  origin  and  interests. 
We  discover  that  what  he  is  all  may 
become,  and    that   at   some  time   he 


or  his  father  began  with  no  other 
capital  than  brains,  character,  and 
health.  The  currents  of  human 
sympathy  again  flow  and  throb  be- 
tween the  avenue  and  the  alley,  the 
cottage  and  the  palace.  Each  recog- 
nizes that  not  by  revolution  or 
anarchy,  but  by  the  ordinary  muta- 
tions of  fortune  they  may  change 
places,  and  upon  the  prosperous  is 
impressed  the  lesson  of  the  respon- 
sibilities of  their  position,  and  upon 
the  poor  the  opportunities  which 
are  open  under  our  institutions  to 
themselves  or  their  children. 

But  how  most  wisely  to  invest 
the  money  which  is  to  carry  out  a 
charitable  purpose  is  not  an  easy 
problem.     It  is  often  partly  wasted 


to  gratify  the  vanity  of  the  donor. 
Mr.  Vanderbilt  had  become  famiHar 
by  his  own  sufferings,  so  patiently 
endured  that  none  but  his  intimate 
friends  knew  of  them,  with  the  benefi- 
cent effects  of  medical  skill  and  the 
possibilities  of  its  growth.  With  his 
strong  common  sense  he  saw  that 
here  was  practically  an  untried  field 
where  the  advancement  of  science 
might  work  out  the  most  beneficent 
and  benevolent  ends.  Libraries, 
hospitals,  and  art  and  literary  insti- 
tutions existed  in  numbers,  each 
doing  in  its  own  way  admirable 
work.  While  in  the  Old  World  gov- 
ernments fostered  schools  of  medi- 
cine, here  their  only  patrons  were 
the  profession,  and  there  was  not  a 


single  great  endowment  in  the  land. 
To  build  a  college  to  be  called  by 
his  name  was  a  temptation,  but  in 
a  city  where  so  many  excellent  uni- 
versities already  existed,  he  saw  that 
the  wiser  use  of  his  money  was  to 
develop  and  enlarge  an  old  institu- 
tion, whose  age,  traditions,  and  expe- 
rience were  of  incalculable  value, 
and  constituted  a  permanent  capital 
which  wealth  could  not  create.  In 
selecting  the  College  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons,  he  chose  the  oldest 
in  age  and  the  equal  in  rank  and 
equipment  of  the  best.  The  story 
of  this  school  is  the  history  of  the 
progress  of  medicine  in  America  for 
a  hundred  years. 

Ninety-nine    years    ago    a    small 


body  of  young  physicians  in  this 
city  formed  a  society  with  the  title 
of  this  college,  declaring  that  their 
purpose  was  "  to  counteract  as  far  as 
possible  the  evil  influences  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  profession,  to  serve 
the  poor,  and  to  improve  medical 
science."  They  established  the  first 
free  dispensary  New- York  ever  had, 
and  within  its  walls  gave  gratuitous 
attendance  on  the  poor,  and  lectures 
and  instruction  to  students.  Four 
years  afterward,  in  1791,  they  came 
with  a  full  corps  of  professors  and 
sixty-one  students  and  a  memorial 
unanimously  indorsing  them  from 
the  County  Medical  Society  to  the 
Regents  of  the  University  of  the 
State  of   New- York,  praying   to  be 


taken  under  their  "protection."  The 
movement  inspired  immediate  and 
universal  interest.  Old  doctors  bear- 
ing diplomas  from  Edinburgh,  Paris, 
and  Vienna  hailed  it  as  the  dawn  of 
a  new  and  hopeful  era  in  the  prog- 
ress of  their  profession  in  the  Repub- 
lic, and  to  the  young  it  was  full  of 
brilliant  promise.  That  grizzly  and 
gallant  warrior  and  patriot,  Baron 
Steuben,  who  was  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Regents,  came  down  from 
the  sterile  farm  which  the  State  had 
voted  him  as  a  reward  for  his  serv- 
ices in  the  Revolutionary  War,  to 
examine  and  report,  and  upon  the 
recommendation  of  himself  and  his 
fellow-committeemen  the  Legislature 
on  the  24th  of  March,  1791,  author- 


ized  the  Regents  in  their  discretion 
to  incorporate  the  College  of  Physi- 
cians and  Surgeons,  provided  its 
capital  did  not  exceed  ;;^6o,ooo  and 
the  Regents  appointed  its  professors 
and  conferred  its  degrees. 

Thus  successfully  started,  the  young 
college  began  its  prosperous  and  pro- 
gressive, but  adventurous  and  aggres- 
sive career.  But  its  pathway  was 
not  clear.  The  Regents  approved  of 
this  law  and  appointed  a  committee 
to  prepare  a  charter  for  the  young 
university.  The  Trustees  of  Colum- 
bia College  protested  against  the 
granting  of  this  charter  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  authorized  to  establish 
a  Medical  School,  that  they  had  the 
business  much  at  heart  and  were  pro- 


ceeding  as  fast  as  possible,  with  the 
prospect  and  intention  of  effecting  all 
the  objects  which  the  rival  school 
could  accomplish  if  permitted  by  the 
Regents  under  the  Act  of  1 79 1 .  They 
successfully  fought  off  affirmative  ac- 
tion until  the  twelfth  of  March,  1807, 
when  the  coveted  charter  was  secured. 
By  this  charter  the  Medical  Society 
of  the  City  of  the  County  of  New- 
York  was  incorporated  as  the  College 
of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  and  Dr. 
Nicholas  Romayne,  who  had  origi- 
nated the  first  Medical  School  in 
1787,  petitioned  for  collegiate  recog- 
nition by  the  State  in  1 79 1,  and  nobly 
kept  the  faith  till  the  victory  of  1807, 
became  its  first  President.  The  con- 
test   which    Columbia    College    and 


her  Medical  Department  began  in 
1792  was  now  taken  up  with  re- 
newed vigor  by  the  Physicians  and 
Surgeons  assuming  the  offensive. 
They  demanded  that  the  College 
School  should  be  merged  with  them, 
and  Columbia  recognize  the  Physi- 
cians and  Surgeons  as  its  Medical 
Department.  The  Regents  and 
the  Legislature  became  involved 
in  this  contest,  and  the  mar- 
velous patience  and  learning  of 
Chancellor  Kent  were  exhausted  in 
an  effort  to  settle  it.  But  it  contin- 
ued until  in  18 14  that  ancient  and 
venerable  seat  of  learning  surren- 
dered unconditionally  and  accepted 
your  terms.  The  Regents  expressed 
their    profound    satisfaction    in    this 


result  by  reporting  "  that  from  the 
medical  college  thus  united,  and 
embracing  the  most  eminent  medical 
talent  of  the  State  in  one  splendid 
seminary,  the  most  beneficial  conse- 
quences may  be  anticipated."  But 
the  battle  for  sole  supremacy  was  not 
yet  over.  A  number  of  professors 
seceded  and  procured  authority  from 
Rutgers  College,  New  Jersey,  to  open 
in  this  city  a  medical  school  and 
confer  upon  its  graduates  the  Rut- 
gers degree.  The  Legislature  was 
appealed  to.  State  pride  was  invoked ; 
the  question  became  one  of  the 
political  issues  of  the  time.  The 
Physicians  and  Surgeons  again  tri- 
umphed, by  the  passage  of  a  law 
declaring  that  degrees  conferred  upon 


13 


the  sacred  soil  of  New- York  by  the 
chartered  colleges  of  foreign  govern- 
ments should  be  void;  and  this  was 
one  of  the  reasons  put  forth  by 
New  Jersey  for  the  retaliatory  legis- 
lation under  which  for  half  a  century 
she  exacted  toll  by  way  of  State  tax 
from  our  citizens  crossing  her  bor- 
ders. With  the  growth  of  the  city 
this  feeling  gave  way  to  a  generous 
recognition  of  all  worthy  comers  into 
this  exhaustless  field  of  education  and 
usefulness. 

The  medical  colleges  of  New- York 
are  no  longer  enemies  but  friendly 
rivals,  emulous  in  that  strife  for  ex- 
cellence by  which  each  stimulates  the 
others;  and  all  combined  form  a 
splendid    New- York    University    of 


14 


Medicine.  Large  endowments  to 
any  of  them  are  of  benefit  to  all, 
because  none  can  be  lifted  to  a  posi- 
tion which  the  rest  will  not  soon 
crowd  in  this  most  happy  contest  to 
discover  and  impart  those  things 
which  will  prolong  life,  heal  the  sick, 
restore  the  crippled  and  injured,  and 
alleviate  suffering.  The  history  of 
this  college  furnishes  an  illustration 
of  the  moral  progress  of  the  century. 
In  the  good  old  times,  the  doctrine 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means 
received  frequent  and  most  authori- 
tative approval.  The  State  in  1808, 
and  again  in  18 14,  resorted  to  that 
most  insidious  and  demoralizing  form 
of  gambling,  the  lottery,  to  put 
money    into    its     treasury     for    the 


15 


endowment  and  development  of  lit- 
erary institutions  and  to  promote 
higher  education.  From  the  first  of 
these  lotteries  this  college  received 
$5000,  and  from  the  second  $30,- 
000,  and  without  other  public  assist- 
ance, has  struggled  and  expanded 
until  after  a  lapse  of  seventy-two 
years  it  becomes  one  of  the  strong- 
est and  best-appointed  schools  in 
the  world,  through  the  medium  of 
the  splendid  benefaction  we  this  day 
commemorate.  Upon  these  grounds, 
donated  by  William  H.  Vanderbilt, 
his  gift  erects,  furnishes,  and  endows 
a  building  equal  to  all  the  require- 
ments of  the  present  and  the  needs 
of  the  future.  Mr.  William  D. 
Sloane    builds    the    Maternity    Hos- 


16 


pital,  and  the  generosity  of  his  wife 
endows  all  the  beds,  making  them 
free ;  while  the  four  sons  create  the 
Clinic,  which  will  be  a  vast  dispen- 
sary, giving  without  charge  to  the 
poor,  for  all  time,  medicines  and  the 
best  professional  attendance,  as  a 
memorial  to  their  father,  more  grate- 
ful to  him  if  living  and  to  his  spirit 
now  that  he  is  dead  than  stately  shaft 
or  gorgeous  mausoleum.  [Applause.] 
The  advances  made  by  practical 
medicine  in  the  past  hundred  years 
have  kept  pace  with  the  wonderful 
development  of  this  century  in  every 
department  of  human  thought  and 
energy.  The  brilliant  discoveries  in 
chemistry  have  unfolded  the  mysteri- 
ous processes  of  life  and  death.     The 


17 


microscope  has  found  the  germs 
which  spread  disease,  carry  infection, 
and  propagate  pestilence,  and  science 
is  experimenting  for  their  control  or 
extermination.  Invention  and  obser- 
vation have  stimulated  each  other, 
until  the  functions,  the  operations, 
and  the  condition  of  every  part  of 
living  men  are  seen  by  a  diagnosis 
as  clear  and  complete  as  the  beaten 
pathway  of  truth,  while  pharma- 
ceutical chemists  have  found  new 
remedies  and  discovered  the  active 
principle  of  those  known  before,  so 
that  the  revelation  and  location  of 
diseases  have  been  followed  by  the 
finding  of  the  drugs  by  which  they 
may  be  stayed  or  cured.  To  meet 
the  requirements  of  this  tremendous 


i8 


and  beneficent  revolution  medical 
education  is  no  longer  didatic,  but 
clinical  or  experimental.  Object 
teaching  creates  the  modern  phy- 
sician. The  lecturer  of  to-day  is 
no  longer  a  theorist,  but  a  demon- 
strator of  what  the  student  can  see. 
The  laboratory,  the  hospital,  and  the 
dispensary  are  all  necessary  for  his 
instruction.  To  extract  the  virtues 
from  plants  and  minerals,  to  com- 
pound the  elements  which  nature 
furnishes  for  cure,  to  walk  the  hos- 
pitals, to  examine  the  endless  forms 
of  disease  which  flow  through  a  dis- 
pensary, must  be  his  daily  life.  To 
gather  these  in  any  institution  has 
heretofore  required  a  capital  beyond 
other   resources   than    those    of    the 


19 


Government,  and  hence  the  Ameri- 
can physician  has  not  felt  fully 
equipped  until  he  has  received  at 
London,  Paris,  and  Vienna  these 
practical  lessons.  Now  a  million  of 
dollars,  a  private  benefaction,  renders 
possible  the  construction  and  equip- 
ment of  a  medical  college  superior  to 
any  ever  known  in  this  country  and 
equal  to  the  best  in  the  world.  With 
this  endowment,  and  the  impulse  and 
inspiration  which  will  follow  it,  New- 
York  will  become  the  center  of  medi- 
cal learning,  education  and  acquire- 
ment for  the  American  Continent. 
[Applause.]  - 

Great  fortunes  involve  grave  duties 
from  which  there  is  no  escape.  The 
administration  of  a  vast  estate  is  a 


trust  of  far-reaching  responsibilities. 
The  law  does  not  and  can  not  say 
how  he  shall  use  it,  but  the  jury  of 
the  world  is  day  by  day  taking  testi- 
mony, and  every  right-minded  man 
wants  its  favorable  verdict.  He  must 
not  squander,  or  waste,  or  hoard,  and 
so  long  as  it  is  actively  employed  it 
does  a  public  service.  Strong  and 
masterful  men  who  create  and  hold 
together,  and  manage  great  enterprises 
which  give  employment  and  wages  to 
thousands  of  people,  and  who  keep 
their  fortunes  active  in  the  conduct  and 
development  of  business,  are  practical 
benefactors  and  philanthropists.  They 
are  of  necessity  the  hardest  workers 
in  their  system  and  often  crushed  by 
its  weight.     But  they  cannot  stop  at 


the  point  where  their  roads  or  mills, 
mines  or  factories  furnish  the  means 
of  living  to  the  healthy  and  able- 
bodied.  They  must  contribute  in 
liberal  measure  for  the  young,  the 
helpless,  the  infirm,  and  the  aged. 
In  this  they  are  laying  up  for  them- 
selves not  only  treasures  in  Heaven, 
where  moth  and  rust  do  not  corrupt, 
nor  thieves  break  through  and  steal, 
but  the  sweet  incense  of  gratitude  and 
praise  ever  wafted  to  their  memories. 
Said  John  Howard,  the  philanthro- 
pist, when  dying  of  disease  contracted 
in  the  service  of  the  unfortunate : 
"  Let  my  monument  be  a  sun-dial. 
I  would  be  useful  after  my  death." 
William  H.  Vanderbilt  led  a  life 
of  work  and  care.     He  knew  merit. 


and  recognized,  rewarded  and  pro- 
moted it  in  numberless  ways ;  and  he 
despised  idlers,  pretenders,  and  shams. 
He  wanted  his  fellow-men  to  look 
through  the  wealth  he  was  adminis- 
tering to  the  best  of  his  ability  and 
see  him  as  he  understood  himself, 
claiming  no  superiority  to  which  he 
was  not  fairly  entitled,  trying  to  do 
his  duty  as  a  man  and  a  citizen,  liv- 
ing temperately,  loving  his  friends, 
and  willing  to  help  in  every  good  or 
public  work.  He  was  proud  of  New- 
York,  and  besides  his  conspicuous 
gifts  for  the  Obelisk  and  this  college, 
he  contributed  in  an  unobtrusive  way 
vast  sums  for  its  religious,  benevolent, 
art,  and  educational  enterprises.  This 
great  city,  with  its  marvelous  growth. 


23 


its  cosmopolitan  character,  and  its 
limitless  future,  is  the  most  interest- 
ing of  social  and  political  problems. 
The  world  in  miniature  lives  and 
works  and  illustrates  all  civilizations 
within  its  walls,  and  the  time  is  not 
distant  when  the  pulsations  of  its 
thought  and  commerce  will  move  the 
world.  From  this  foundation  will 
rise  an  institution  which  will  give 
New- York  the  first  rank  in  the  most 
beneficent  of  the  sciences.  May  it  be 
also  an  example  inspiring  others  to 
those  deeds  which  are  possible  only 
to  a  few,  but  wisely  bestowed  may 
make  our  metropolis  supreme  in  every 
department  which  educates,  elevates 
and  ennobles  the  race.     [Applause.] 


24 


ynavufixuiv"ttcn/v=-  j 
-yativ. 


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laying  of  the 


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